The invention relates in particular to a packaging machine for filling multi-row packaging trays with piece-form, products, or example damageable products or the confectionery and long-life bakery products industry, for example single- or multi-Layer cookies, sponge cakes, chocolate products and the like. In this case, such products are arranged in single- or multi-row packaging trays in any desired arrangement, for example on edge, flat or imbricated. The invention relates in particular to an arrangement of such products in multi-row packaging trays. The invention thus relates to what is known in the art as a tray loading packaging machine.
Such machines are suitable not only for the abovementioned products of the food industry but also for packaging other piece-form products, for example technical products such as electronic or electrical components, machine elements, pharmaceutical or medical produces and the like, which are generally produced and sold in large numbers. In the present case, the machine according to the invention, is described for example by way of the packaging of cookies.
Piece-form products, for example cookies, are transferred directly, continuously or intermittently to the packaging machine from an upstream, production plant, generally via a plurality of parallel lanes, said packaging machine filling them into packaging trays. These trays are formed typically from a colored or transparent. Lightweight plastics material and they hold the cookies for example in a stacked manner standing on edge, as a result of which the cookies are protected against breaking up during transport. The trays have a row or a plurality of rows (cavities) arranged parallel to one another for holding the products. After, being filled with the cookies, the trays are typically wrapped with a packaging film and/or cardboard packaging and closed.
In tray loading packaging machines from the prior art, the individual rows, arranged parallel to one another, of multi-row packaging trays are generally filled with cookies in succession, i.e. on a row-by-row basis. For this purpose, it is necessary for the feeding devices for transferring the cookies to the packaging tray and/or the packaging tray itself to be moved to and fro multiple times in relation to one another. This method necessitates a relatively slow speed of filling of the trays with cookies, i.e. a relatively low output or the packaging machine. In known machines of this type, the products can be packed typically at an output of 800 to 1000 products per minute.
However, today, these outputs are no longer considered sufficient and there is therefore a desire to use machines for filling multi-row packaging trays at a higher packaging speed, i.e. a higher output. Therefore, it is the object or the present invention to create a packaging machine for filling multi-row packaging frays with piece-form products, said packaging machine having a higher output than the machines known from the prior art.
This object is achieved by a method for filling a multi-row packaging tray with piece-form products and also by a corresponding apparatus according to the claims and the equivalents to the claims appended hereto. Accordingly, according to the invention, the filling of a multi-row packaging tray with piece-form products no longer takes place on a row-by-row basis, i.e. each row of the packaging tray individually in succession, but rather the rows, arranged alongside one another, of the packaging tray are filled with the products substantially at the same time as, parallel to or synchronously with one another.